


The Phoenix Will Rise

by Ashling



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: M/M, Sci-Fi AU, half plot half pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-03 04:29:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: "This is our killer mountain, yeah? This is where we die, so it belongs to us. We do whatever the fuck we want here. Whatever we want, Tommy."first dawn, twenty-seventh first dawn, what's the difference?





	1. first dawn.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onlyechoes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyechoes/gifts), [simonon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simonon/gifts).



> for onlyechoes, for simonon: you know what you did!
> 
> (but in a nice way.)

He wakes to utter blackness, reeling. Panicked, he lashes out, finds nylon at his fingertips, the thin, bumpy ridge of a zipper. His hands shake so badly he can hardly find the little plastic tab of the zipper, but he does, and yanks, and is hit full in the face with light that knocks him back into what turns out to be his sleeping bag.  _ Fucking hell.  _ Waves of nausea batter his brain, but he’s a fighter, he knows that much. He curls on his side, lifts his head a little, and squints through the open flap of his tent. 

The beauty of the dawn shocks his mind into forgetting all pain, if only for a moment. 

In front of his tent, there is a small stretch of gravelly mountainside that drops down abruptly to reveal a valley far below, green and glorious and swelled with the summer. Nestled in the palm of the valley, New Birmingham’s glass buildings gleam amid all its smoke and chaos. Beyond the valley, to the south, glass catches the light in small towns amid the fields of Erles and West Celas. 

A little ways away on the mountainside, a man bends slightly over a fire, checking the little kettle suspended above it. The bandage on his back is familiar, as is the tattoo on his left shoulder. 

The man’s name is Tommy. It is the first concrete word that Alfie remembers, after his own.

Suddenly the world feels much more solid. The nausea continues to roil Alfie’s head, but he can take it.  _ Tommy.  _ Alright. With a grunt, Alfie manages to sit up. Five minutes later, he’s dressed and all, the nausea has subsided, and he remembers everything. Well, everything that he can.

As Alfie lumbers towards him, Tommy extends a hand without looking. In that hand is a thermos of hot tea.

Alfie rolls his eyes, even though he knows Tommy can’t see. “You know, you look a right—”

“Fucking fool, shirt off on Death Mountain?”

“How did—”

“—I do that? Drink your fucking tea.”

Alfie squats next to Tommy and gives him a glare. Still Tommy doesn’t look over, just stares serenely out at the landscape, imperious and mystical as some old statue. Fucking typical.

“You’re always stupider before you’ve had tea,” says Tommy. Lightning-fast, he ducks, just in time to miss a smack from Alfie that otherwise would’ve bowled him over. He clears his throat. “You’re always angrier before you’ve had tea,” he adds, dryly. 

“Fucking rude,” Alfie grumbles, but it’s a bit uncertain. He takes the thermos and sips. The tea itself is just how he likes it best, piping hot and sugary to the point of hot chocolate. “How—”

“Shut up and drink.” Tommy produces a silver cigarette holder from one of the many pockets in his dark trousers.

Alfie takes a cigarette from it before Tommy can stop him. No. There’s something about Tommy’s face that suggests that he let it happen. Either way, Alfie wants a smoke.

They smoke in silence, Tommy accumulating a little heap of cigarette ends between his feet, Alfie only smoking the one, and mostly as punctuation to long sips of tea. Dawn slips into morning, pink flowering into gold, and Alfie can feel himself wakening properly. He rolls his shoulders, empties the last of the tea in two scalding gulps, and looks over at Tommy. 

Tommy doesn’t appear to have experienced the same rejuvenation. If anything, he looks diseased, or maybe that’s just a combination of exhaustion, pallor, and sullenness. Likely he has a headache, Alfie decides.

“Well?” Tommy says.

Alfie has so fucking much to say about that tone of voice alone, but there’s work to be done, and now that he’s adjusted, he’s eager to get to it. “How many times have we died?”

Tommy looks at the little pile of ashes and cigarette ends at his feet. 

“That bad, eh?”

Tommy lights yet another cigarette. Makes Alfie wait for it. Exhales. “Twenty-seven.” 

“Fucking hell,” Alfie says softly. If he was being honest with himself, he’d expected them to achieve the mission within the first fifteen tries, at least. What if this is it? What if they can’t—

“Eat, then we’ll go.” Tommy slides a half-opened backpack towards Alfie with his boot. 

Still thinking over those twenty-seven deaths, Alfie investigates the contents of the food pack lying at their feet, discovers an almond bar to his liking, and chows down. When he’s done, he brushes his fingers hastily through his beard, in case his beard caught any crumbs. Though, seeing as he's likely to die within the next three days, the crumbs probably don't matter...no, it's still the principle of the thing. The principle of having a clean(ish) beard. He doesn’t have many principles, but he figures he ought to stick with the ones he’s got. Chin up, Solomons.

"Did you die first this time, or did I?" Alfie asks. This is a perfectly reasonable question, but Tommy sighs as if Alfie’s imposing on him by asking, which is an answer in itself.

"I fucking knew it," Alfie crows. "I did say you'd be the one holding us back, didn't I? I was right."

"Aren't you always?" Tommy says dryly.

Alfie settles back, surveys the gray upward sweep of Death Mountain behind them. "So how close have we gotten to the peak?"

"Very close."

"Well, fuck, mate, with time travel as a death reset, you're bound to get lucky eventually. The whole thing's practically a videogame, innit? Twenty-seven tries. Talk about a low fucking score."

Tommy rubs his forehead, evidently wishing that Death Mountain would just finally explode and shower volcanic ash upon Alfie's head.

"We were half an hour's trek from the peak, last time," Tommy says, with marked patience, as if explaining things to an absolute dunce. "There was an unexpected pack of four Clicks that caught us as we were taking a breather after the last attack. You got your arm ripped off, and one of them bit down on my head. If I knew there was a way for me to avoid the feeling of my head being separated from my body, I would have fucking avoided it."

"You remember every time you die from every climb?" Alfie says, intrigued.

"Everything until the second my heart stops beating." 

Alfie opens his mouth, but Tommy cuts in fast: "No.  _ No _ . We're not having this conversation."

"What conversation?"

"The conversation where you try to quiz me on every way you and I have died. I’m not having it.” He looks directly at Alfie for the first time, eyes full of the unreadable, and Alfie’s chest seizes up for no reason at all. The only feelings he recalls ever having had in his life this intense are fear, rage, and victory. But Tommy’s not going to hurt him, or anger him, or be defeated by him. This is nothing Alfie understands. He looks away. Maybe this is a side-effect of dying. The nausea has gone, maybe that was stage one and this is stage two. But fuck, no doctor had told him about this.  _ Get a fucking grip. _

Tommy looks back out at the valley and goes on as if nothing has happened. Maybe a little more lightly than before. “It’s a trip down memory lane, if Memory Lane is a street where every house is on fire, there's a river of piss in the gutter, and the police come out of every alley and take turns beating the shit out of you."

Now that’s a language Alfie understands. "Sounds like just another day in the neighborhood, mate."

Tommy's lips twitch. "Let's climb." He gets to his feet and makes for the tents.

"It’s only been twenty minutes! What about my half hour to get adjusted?" Alfie calls after him. "Oi! Like they said, if you don't let me mentally rest and whatnot, I could get very fucking unstable."

"You already are, Alfie. You already are."

Alfie chuckles and looks over his shoulder. Tommy is pulling his black shirt over his head with the slightly stilted movement of an injured man, trying not to stretch his hurt back, and again Alfie feels something that he’d like to put down as nausea but can’t. Tommy catches him looking and tilts his head tiredly, as if to say,  _ what now? _ Alfie flips him off, turns back, and starts packing up. 

What now? If only he fucking knew.


	2. twelve days before.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy and Alfie both attend the same Aishe Day celebration at the school that John and Arthur's kids go to.
> 
> Things happen.

“Dad, I’m hungry,” Charlie whimpered. A few years ago, Tommy could have just told him that it would be over soon, but at all of eleven years old, Charlie was too smart for that now. 

Tommy looked at his watch and found it entirely unforgiving. He longed to get up out of those awful low theater seats, walk out of the building, and take a cab to the White Pony, but he knew it was not to be. He could picture the perfect meal in his mind, could nearly smell it. Simple but good, a fish pie, some beer, and Charlie getting exactly the same...well, not beer. Tommy had started drinking already at that age, but he had a feeling that Grace wouldn’t approve of it, and he found it difficult to argue with his wife now that she was dead.

“Dad.”

“I know. Here, read the program.” Tommy handed over the program in all its pink and black glory.  _ New Birmingham Tenth District Elementary School Aishe Day Performance, _ it said in overwrought curlicue letters on the front page. Clearly some teacher had repressed years of creative instincts only to unleash them all on a piece of paper whose sole purpose was to list the names of children that everybody already knew were there. “Tell me which families make the biggest showing. Rank them.”

Charlie squinted at it. “Rank them how?”

“Whichever family you think has the most power over the production.”

The dark-haired woman sitting to him shook her head. “Jesus, Tommy.” 

Tommy said nothing. It was always only a matter of time before Esme found some fault with his parenting, and he had found that the best way to deal with it was just to ignore her. If he was making a life-threatening mistake she’d escalate to shouting, which is the point at which he’d stop ignoring her. In the meantime he liked to think he got on pretty well.

The game he’d devised had Charlie engaged for a good five minutes. “Is it a trick question?” Charlie finally asked, looking up from the rows of names.

“No.”

“Do you have an answer in your head?”

“Yes,” Tommy lied.

“Hm.” Charlie went back to studying the list of names with such intensity that Tommy regretted making the game up at all. Charlie had what Tommy called his mother’s determination and what Polly called his father’s bloodymindedness. Perhaps Charlie would have a better time if he were more like these other children, easily pleased with a friendly compliment or a rubber ball. But no, his great love was tackling challenges as small as a wooden puzzle and as large as a draft horse, and Tommy found some small measure of comfort in that, in knowing that he wasn’t alone in the restless turnings of his mind. It was selfish, but he liked that he could look at Charlie, with his brown bangs a little too long and his tiny forehead screwed up in thought, and understand the rhythm of how his mind was feeling out the problem.

Some time later—would they never start the fucking show?—Charlie looked up and grinned. “I have it.”

“Go on, then,” said Tommy. He tried not to smile too wide, thought it was a little idiotic to appear that indulgent in public, but  _ fuck _ he loved the way Charlie’s blue eyes would light up when he smelled victory.

“The Markowitz family has the most children in the show, with thirteen. But only Solly and Miriam can act, so most of them are things like Viridian soldiers, because it doesn’t take any talent to wear green and hold guns and look evil. They don’t have the most power out of the production.”

“All right,” said Tommy, who was already enjoying this immensely.

“We have a decent showing, mostly because Katie got the role of Aishe, but also because Jimmy got to be an evil Viridian politician, and yell about how the Jews and the gypsies are fomenting a culture of crime and blah blah blah in the valley.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. John Junior, affectionately known as Jimmy, had his father’s smile and his mother’s spirits, and was about as far from a politician as anyone could be, even if you excluded his youth.

“He’s really good. You’ll see. But ultimately, I think the Amiel family has the most power over the production, as you said.”

“Family of prodigies, is it?”

“No. But Mr. Amiel is the principal, so he could cancel the whole show before it’s begun. Power.” Charlie grinned up at him, and Tommy grinned back before he could catch himself.

Esme reached over and hit him on the shoulder. Before he could object, she gestured behind them, to the theater’s main entrance. 

Tommy turned, and all his satisfaction melted away. He swore. “He doesn’t even have children.”

“Guess we know why the show’s late,” Esme murmured, as they both watched Alfie Solomons saunter down the central aisle. “Couldn’t start without him.”

“I tried to convince the school board to stop taking his donations, last term.”

“And they laughed in your face?”

“Something like that.” 

“Should we be worried?”

“No. Half the City Council’s children are in this fucking play. If he does pull anything, it’ll be nothing short of a coup.”

“Are we quite sure he’s not about to try to overthrow the government?”

“We’re sure there’s nothing we can do to stop him now.”

Charlie darted out of his seat, but Tommy’s reflexes had been perfected long ago, and he collared his son almost without looking. 

“No,” Tommy said.

“I wouldn’t even talk to him! I’d just pick his pockets.”

“He’s eaten smaller boys than you for breakfast.”

“Really?”

“No, but don’t go stealing from Alfie Solomons without a grand plan.”

“Simplest plans are the best. It’s when you get complicated that you get fucked.”

“Don’t go quoting Aunt Pol to me.” Tommy plopped his son back down in the little theater chair. 

Charlie sighed. “Will the play at least start now?”

“I think so.”

And sure enough, immediately after Alfie had politely evicted someone from the front row and settled himself down, the lights dimmed.

Alfie had made all his rivals stew in their boredom for an extra twenty minutes with some of their kids whining beside them and some of their kids probably pissing themselves from stage fright. Tommy had to hand it to him; even for an international arms dealer, was a whole new level of particularly petty assholery. 

Once the curtain lifted, though, Tommy’s annoyance melted away. It was genuinely hilarious to see all the three and four year olds lined up, wobbly and blinking in the stage lights, trying to remember the appropriate words and motions to some song and dance about Death Mountain. Not that the song called it that, of course; to be politically correct, the school had dutifully stuck to the rebrand, and the song, thanking Mount Ilia for making the valley a good place to grow various different crops. Notably, it did not mention that the way that Death Mountain had done that was by exploding in a cloud of volcanic ash and destroying everything in the valley below, including all its previous inhabitants. But maybe that wasn’t age-appropriate. 

Somewhere in between the verse about grain and the verse about apples, Oliver, Esme and John’s youngest, got tired of the dancing and decided to sit down. Very neatly, cross-legged, he spent the rest of the song singing heartily, but not even trying to make the right motions with his arms. Occasionally he swiped his curly brown hair out of his eyes with one pudgy little hand, but that was it, despite the silent gesticulating of his young teacher, who was clearly trying to motion him to get up. When the song ended, most of the kids filed out, but Oliver stayed sitting, so the poor woman had to get up on stage and pick Oliver up to make way for the next scene. From far down the Shelby row, Arthur laughed so hard over it he sounded nearly hysterical.

Then came the prime attraction, the Aishe Day reenactment. A rather impressive number of students dressed in green, red, and yellow, and representing armies from Viridian, West Celas, and Erles, milled about on the stage shouting and brandishing some of the most unconvincing gun replicas Tommy had ever seen. Among them was Karl, who as one of the oldest Shelbys, had participated in more Aishe Days than he cared to remember and appeared bored out of his mind. Tommy didn’t blame him; at that age, he had spent most historical reenactments in a similarly sullen state.

Finally, the Viridians “won”, represented by all the red and yellow wearing students dropping dramatically down onto the stage, and a handful of the students wearing green ripped off their green shirts to reveal blue or orange below, apparently representing the Jewish and Romani people that had fled afterwards. Tommy was getting bored again. Last year’s play had had much better production values.

But then came Jimmy, all dressed in green. Even frowning, he still reminded Tommy of a much younger John, especially considering the way he gestured with great enthusiasm as he gave his speech. At first, said speech was standard fare about how the Viridians couldn’t trust New Birmingham and all those Jews and gypsies and their illegal buildings and the way that criminals were fleeing from law abiding countries to blah blah blah, but as he really got into it, Jimmy began to get extemporaneous, and pretty soon he was bellowing improvised political invective with a viciousness, filth, and speed which frankly impressed his uncle very much.

He glanced down at Charlie to see how Charlie was taking this. Far from being disturbed by his cousin’s unexpected aptitude for mimicking one of the most renowned racists of recent history, Charlie appeared completely enthralled by the way that Jimmy was getting away with saying things that otherwise Esme would have washed his mouth out for.

Esme noticed it, too. When Jimmy was finally waved off the stage by a red-faced teacher, she leaned over. 

“Hey.” She tapped Charlie on the shoulder. “If you weren’t homeschooled, you could be up there right now. Tell your dad to enroll you next year.”

Tommy didn’t even look away from the stage. “Fuck off, Esme.”

“Bite me, Tommy.”

“Fuck off, Aunt Esme.”

“Oi!” said Tommy.

“Sorry,” Charlie muttered. 

Esme raised one eyebrow, but nobody could withstand a solid fifteen seconds of Charlie giving them the puppy eyes. She relented, mussing his hair. “You really are your father’s son.”

“You lot, shut up,” Polly whisper-hissed. “Katie’s on soon.”

That Katie was, and for all the chaos and embarrassment that previous Shelbys had caused the most important school performance of the year, John’s daughter more than made up for it. From the moment she stepped on the stage, all eyes were on her. Despite the truly awful props and set, her determined gray eyes miraculously lifted Aishe’s story out of the ridiculous and into the captivating. Read on a page, her little opening monologue about how worried she was about her family back home in New Birmingham would have come across as trite, but the way she delivered it, it reminded Tommy of his first few nights away from home, trying to fall asleep in the barracks and missing Arthur’s familiar snore.

The beats of the story were familiar to everyone: how Aishe had stolen some of the most important weapons research from under the nose of her employer; how she had brought them to New Birmingham; how, at the age of only twenty-three, she had flown to the top of Mount Ilia, deposited the pulse technology that blanketed the valley in a protective signal-blocking shield, keeping New Birmingham safe from the Viridian threat. With her plane thus disabled, she tried to descend the mountain on foot, and died in the attempt. When the boy who played the radio operator tried to contact her and received no response, Tommy could actually feel his throat tighten up. Fucking hell, an emotion. Who knew that thirteen-year-old Katie could do something to him that getting shot in the arm couldn’t even manage anymore?

When the curtain went down, most of the audience was still stunned, but Arthur, never one for hesitation, immediately began clapping. 

“On your feet!” he roared, and there came the standing ovation. 

As the applause eventually died down, Tommy felt Charlie tugging at his sleeve. He bent down, a little worried that his son would actually demand to attend school after all. But no.

“Can we eat now, Dad?”

“Yes,” said Tommy, a split second before Principal Amiel took the stage. 

Amiel was a rather slight, balding man with the thinnest of wire reading glasses, hardly imposing, but his voice, when he spoke, held a surprising amount of authority, low and grave and measured. “Thank you, everyone, for coming today to share in the celebration of our city and its history.”

A few parents began to sneak out the back door, evidently wishing to skip the patriotic speech and get their children. 

In response, Amiel raised his voice, just a little. “I would especially like to thank our guest, Mr. Solomons, for supporting our school in so many ways.”

Jesus Christ. Tommy could hear Esme make a noise of disgust, and for once, the two of them were in agreement. Amiel had always been a brown noser, but this time he was so far up Alfie’s ass that he must have been bumping into Alfie’s fucking liver with his forehead. 

“This year, he has blessed our school not only with his general support, but also with scholarships for a number of students, some based on need and some on particular gifts. Tonight, we would like to highlight one of these students by inviting the winner of the Alfie Solomons Patriotism In Writing Essay Contest to read their piece. Miriam, will you please come to the stage.”

A girl of about fifteen, with two long braids, walked slowly down the center aisle, blushing furiously. There were multiple papers clutched in her hand. Multiple sheets of paper.

Tommy was going to kill him. That was simply what he was going to have to do. 

“Dad,” said Charlie.  _ “Food.” _

“I know,” Tommy said grimly. “I know.”

When the girl began to read what was essentially a policy paper, Tommy’s eyes just about rolled into the back of his head. There was no originality to it; it was just the common argument for sending the army to remove the pulse technology from the top of Death Mountain. Blah blah blah, wireless technology was the future, blah blah blah, falling behind other countries, blah blah blah, an economic necessity, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Couldn’t Alfie have picked something entertaining, at least? Though, from the Cheshire grin he wore, he clearly was entertained well enough.

The speech dragged on, and Tommy imagined Arthur in his less-than-sober days, who would probably have leapt up and started shouting only two sentences into this speech.  _ If we get rid of the pulse, every other country can fly over us and bomb us into fucking rubble, _ he’d say. Probably wave his arms a little too. Maybe point. Arthur did love pointing at people for emphasis.  _ But of course you don’t care about that, do you, Mr. Solomons? You don’t give a shit about soldiers like me, hell, you’d love a fucking war, arms dealer like you. Make a fortune out of it! You fucker.  _ Spittle flying, more likely than not.

Tommy amused himself with wondering who would win in a fight. Alfie had a weight advantage, but he had the bum leg. Same height, and they were both, to put it delicately, mental. He decided that if he were laying odds, he’d make them damn near 50/50, probably favoring Alfie. Alfie had the edge of quicker thinking, not to mention a clearly sadistic streak, if this endless speech was anything to go by.

Far down the row, there was a stirring, and he looked over. A boy with the recognizable gray cap of a mail runner had passed Polly a letter. WAs this some new policy he’d not been informed of? He’d heard of immediate deliveries to people’s houses at nighttime, but this was something else. Polly’s face as she read the letter made his stomach drop. There was a moment of pure dismay, and then the mask slid into place. They were in public, and he could not reach over, grab her, and ask, but in his head he went through all the people that could be dead. It wasn’t a child, wouldn’t be, not with that reaction. Uncle Charlie, maybe? Johnny Dogs?

Polly handed the letter down to Esme, then got up and started to leave the theater, just as Principal Amiel suddenly interrupted the girl on stage. 

“I apologize,” he said, “but there is something important I feel we must speak about. Please have a seat, Miriam.” There was a faint tremor in his voice, though he spoke far more quickly than he usually did. The girl gladly fled the stage. Amiel gripped the microphone tighter. 

“On this day, of all days,” he said, “We must think on the nature of our city.” 

Esme was reading the letter now and she was worse than Polly at keeping a stone face; the fear was there. Up in the front row, Alfie was reading a letter too. Tommy hadn’t seen who passed it to him, but fuck. Fuck. 

“Less than seventy years old,” Amiel went on, “In the shadow of Mount Ilia, poorer than the surrounding countries, created by all the people not wanted elsewhere. And yet we are not fragile. New Birmingham will remain for generations to come for the same reason that it has survived thus far: because we are a people familiar with sacrifice.”

Tommy could taste the bitterness of adrenaline, and he hadn’t even seen a fucking gun yet.

“Because, when the moment comes, we can work as one to save ourselves. Because Aishe alone could not have done it without the thousands of troops, some veterans and some conscripts, who fought on the ground even as the pulse shielded the sky. Because we fight together.”

Esme had tangled one hand in John’s hair, John had no idea what was happening, but they were kissing passionately and Tommy couldn’t stand it anymore. He snatched the letter out of her hand.

“If we can keep our heads,” Amiel said urgently, “if we can think in a crisis, if we—”

The sirens went off. The theater erupted.

“KEEP YOUR FUCKING HEADS.” That was Alfie, roaring into the microphone. He had bounded up onto the stage and snatched it from Amiel’s hands. “Stay fucking seated. You’re not children. We’ve been drilled on this. Half of you are in the fucking army, so try and  _ fucking act like it.” _

The crowd settled somewhat, such was the power of the man’s voice.

“Troop transport should be here shortly, and we’ll all get our marching orders then. For now, stay in your fucking seats. The last thing we need is some kid trampled.”

Kids, Jesus. Tommy crouched down and put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”

Charlie met him with an intolerably familiar look. He had his mother’s green eyes, and they were now looking at Tommy with pride trying to cover up the fear. “Are we gonna die, Dad?” he said. “I can take it if we are. I just want to know.”

_ “No. _ No, you’re going to be fine.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.” And God he was his mother’s son, he truly was, all the more because looking at him, Tommy couldn’t bear to lie, not like this. 

“I love you, all right?” His son’s eyes had begun to fill with tears. “Look at me. Charlie, I—”

“Orders from the Commander: all soldiers in transport, special troops included, guard reserves included.” Tommy looked up. Alfie had another letter in his hand, was reading it out. “Transport is out front, doesn’t matter which company you’re in, we’ll all get sorted at the base.” There was a sudden surge of movement in the school theater seats. “Oi!” Alfie bellowed. “I want to see some orderly  _ fucking _ exits.”

All around them was a press of bodies, motion, a thousand voices. Tommy had to raise his voice to be heard.

“I have to go. Be good for Linda and Arthur, all right?”

Charlie grabbed his sleeve. “Dad, wait.”

“I have to go. Come on, here.” There was nothing else he could do; he lifted Charlie wholesale and handed him over to Arthur.

“I’ve got him, don’t worry,” Arthur said gruffly. “Kill a couple of em for me, will you?”

Tommy tore himself away, tried and failed to ignore Charlie yelling “Dad!” after him. 

He pushed his way into the aisle, which had swelled with dozens, maybe hundreds of other people, other soldiers, and fuck it was strange to think of them that way when some of them were still in stiff ties or high heels but they were and this was it. Polly he couldn’t see in the crowd, but John and Esme were just ahead of him, holding hands, John not paying any attention to where he was going, but letting her steer him as he leaned over and half-shouted into her ear. The expression on John’s face cut through the panic enough to make Tommy’s chest ache. Esme was in their one and only armored tank division, would be first on the front line. John was in the infantry. 

Outside the school was pure chaos. A few dark cars with their own sirens blaring sped away, likely taking city councilmen, dignitaries, advisors, maybe even Polly to meet with the mayor, but on the whole it was massive, monstrous dark troop transport units, and people piling into them like sardines into a can. In the shuffle, John lost sight of Tommy and Esme. Not that it would matter, he tried to tell himself. If it was to be a fucking war, they’d all get split. None of them were in the same division, and yet—

The flow of people took him into one of the transport units, and he fumbled with the letter in his hand. It was hard to read in the press of people all around him, but the message on it was simple.

_ CLASSIFIED _

_ To: City Council, Commander’s Advisors, Division Leaders _

_ From: City Commander, Mayor _

_ Mount Ilia, Code Orange. Eruption expected in fifteen (15) days. Capitol ASAP.  _

“Oi!” a familiar voice said. 

Tommy looked up into the bearded face of Alfie Solomons.

“Where’d you get that?” He was peering down at the paper, and before Tommy could react, had snatched it away and was tearing it to pieces.

Tommy let it go. Better that then have another soldier read it and panic. 

“Fucking hell, you Shelbys you do share and share alike, don’t you. Classified materials and all.”

The door closed behind them, and in the ensuing darkness, Tommy could feel the unit begin to move, the press of bodies round him the only thing keeping him up.

“You’re reserves, is it, Alfie?”

“Fuck no. Army. Where’d you think I got the fucking limp from?”

In the hubbub of voices, Tommy felt sure he could still hear Charlie calling after him. He closed his eyes, tried to focus. “Army? Impossible.”

“Better believe it, mate.”

“If you were in the Army, you’d never let the lot of us hear the end of your great fucking sacrifices.” 

This would set off Arthur’s PTSD, Tommy was fucking sure of it. Linda would have that handled, maybe, but then there was Charlie for her to take care of and all of John and Esme’s kids, not to mention Linda and Arthur’s own and none of their houses had enough beds for that and—

Alfie’s voice was right in his ear, murmuring something. Something about war, and often, and don’t.

Tommy shivered. Even if Linda did manage to sort all those things out, the best would be to get the children out and soon. Did Polly still have contacts with Erlesian smugglers? She had to, the last deal had been less than two years ago. But then Polly was likely in the Capitol now and lost to everything but strategy. There was no way Linda had the connections to smuggle that many children across the border. And Ada, where was Ada when the sirens went off? Was Karl’s school doing an Aishe Day celebration then, or had they maybe done it in the morning, and if they had, where was Freddie—

“Oi.” That was Alfie, much louder now. The unit hit a bump in the road, jolted, and his beard scraped at Tommy’s cheek.

Tommy flinched away. “What?”

“You didn’t hear a word I said, did you. What are you?”

“I’m fine,” Tommy said through his teeth.

“No, what’s your rank?”

“Sergeant Major.”

“Then I outrank you.”

“Congratulations,” Tommy snarled. 

“Pull it together, Shelby. That’s an order from a superior officer. Look at me.” Tommy did, but in the darkness, there wasn’t much to see. Suddenly, one big hand grabbed him by the collar, pulled him in. “We’re going to need every last soldier. Last I checked, you were a soldier. Yeah? So pull it the fuck together.” Alfie released him with a pat to the shoulder, or maybe it was a slap.

“Yeah,” Tommy got out. He hated that it was coming from Alfie, but the man was right, of course he was. He’d done this before. Breathing, that was the key. Breathing, and thinking through the parts of a handgun. Simple, methodical. How he would clean it. How he would take it apart, and put it back together. Metal only, no people. Metal only…

Eventually, his stomach settled. He felt he had to prove that it had. “Alfie, about that scholarship speech.”

“You liked that? I wrote it myself.”

“I hope, from the bottom of my fucking heart, that you die slow.”

Alfie laughed. He seemed to shrink from Alfie Solomons down to a man when he laughed. It was the way he laughed, too loud and too big and too long. Too too much. Maybe Tommy wasn’t the only one in the conversation who had to count out his breathing. 

“You too, Shelby,” Alfie said. “You too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday, simonon <3


End file.
